OKLAHOMA CITY (May 9, 2022) – Oklahoma Christian will be a No. 6 seed and will face third-seeded Texas A&M-Kingsville on Thursday in the opening round of the NCAA Division II softball tournament in Commerce, Texas.

The NCAA announced the bracket for the 64-team tournament – including the eight-team South Central Regional – during a webcast on Monday morning. The Eagles were sent to a four-team subregional that also will include second-seeded Texas A&M-Commerce and seventh-seeded St. Mary's (Texas).

OC (39-13) will face TAMUK (45-9) at 3 p.m. Thursday at Cain Family Field, with TAMUC (42-13) to play St. Mary's (36-17) at 5:30 p.m. The winners will play on Saturday, with two elimination games to follow. The championship round will be played on Sunday.

"We're excited to make another trip to the NCAA Division II tournament and we're looking forward to competing on this side of the regional bracket," OC coach Shalee Rodriguez said. "We've all seen each other before in conference play, so we all know each other."

The Eagles are in the NCAA field for a third straight time. OC qualified as the Heartland Conference tournament champion in 2019. After the 2020 tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Eagles were the No. 1 seed in the South Central in 2021.

OC and TAMUK have played three times this season. The Eagles and Javelinas split a doubleheader in Kingsville, Texas, on March 13, with OC's 11-5 win in the second game starting the Eagles off on what eventually became a 22-game winning streak. (TAMUC won the opener 4-2.) TAMUK downed OC 10-3 on Saturday in the Lone Star Conference Championship tournament semifinals in Tyler, Texas.

TAMUC, which tied OC for fourth place in the LSC regular-season standings (one game behind TAMUK) swept a doubleheader from the Eagles 7-4 and 7-2 on April 26. OC swept St. Mary's 4-3 and 11-2 in a doubleheader in Oklahoma City on March 20.

The other South Central subregional will be hosted by Texas-Tyler. In first-round games at that site, top-seeded Texas-Tyler will play eighth-seeded Colorado Christian (the only Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference team in the field) while fourth-seeded Lubbock Christian (Texas) will play fifth-seeded Angelo State (Texas).

The LSC, of which OC is a member, led Division II in tournament qualifiers with seven.

The subregional winners will meet in the Super Regional round on May 19-20, with the highest seed to host. Eight Super Regional winners will advance to the Division II Championship finals in Denver, to be played May 26-31.